Dole bites H’w’d hand feeding him

Hollywood has turned into Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole’s favorite whipping boy since he announced his bid for the presidency. Just last week the Kansas Republican took to the Senate floor to lambaste Hollywood’s “mindless violence” and “loveless sex.”

But Dole has never had a problem accepting Hollywood cash while criticizing its programming excesses.

Since 1984, Dole has pocketed $30,250 from movie studios for his personal campaigns for senator and president, and he’s taken thousands more from cable and broadcast companies, according to the D.C.-based group Common Cause.

Dole’s leadership political action committee, Campaign America, also has been the recipient of filmdom’s largess, with contributions running in the thousands from such companies as MCA and Par.

Dole jumped on the anti-rap music bandwagon last week by singling out Time Warner for being “on the cutting edge of the misogyny business.” Yet Dole has accepted $13,000 from Time Warner’s PAC since 1984.

Dole’s campaign sees no hypocrisy in the majority leader’s willingness to simultaneously court and curse Hollywood.

“Some cynics think all elected officials are beholden to the whims of their contributors,” says Dole presidential campaign secretary Nelson Warfield. “This just proves that Bob Dole for one has the courage to stand up to even his own supporters on a matter of principle.”

It’s a safe bet that conservative Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) – Dole’s chief rival for the Republican nomination – won’t soon be making an issue of Dole’s PAC money pipeline to Hollywood. Last week it was disclosed that Gramm once invested in an R-rated movie that later went belly up.